Spam & Friends

I first signed up for Email with AOL back in 1989 I think. I got one of those disk and a dial up modem to connect to the AOL site. Email was the next "CB" radio. A cool way to communicate with friends. Back then only a few people had email and most were on AOL.

Over time email expanded and more and more people were able to communicate. Some time around 1998 or so, I stopped writing regular letters, except to my mother. She never had an email address or a computer. After she died, I never sent another "snail mail" letter via the post office. I have to admit I have sent important letters via FedEx but only for business. All my personal mail is email. Over the years I held on to my AOL address. I have friends who know it and it's a pain to switch to another provider. Today, I have email at work. I have another email address on my Treo phone, and my old AOL address. Three email accounts for the parts of my life.

As email evolved so did the idea of spam and junk email. AOL was always ready to provide filters to block most of it. The worst is stuff sent to me by friends who like to pass on chain email.
Some of these so called friends have never sent me a real email about their life or what they think. They ONLY pass on chain emails. Naked women, flag waving, bible thumping bullshit I do not want or ask for.

At first when I got this crap, I read it. Then deleted it. Much of it is in support of some cause. Help the poor little kid who is dying of aids by sending this email to all your friends kind of stuff. I never really understood how this would help. I guess the kid died because I did not pass on the chain email. In the last few years this chain email has begun to include more important issues. Some are about global warming. Some about Iraq. Many are about how America is going to hell because of Mexicans or the lack of school prayer.

About a month ago I got a chain email from a former coworker from 5 years ago. He never sends me an email about where he works or his life. But out of no place he sends me an email saying how great jesus is for saving him. This would have been another delete, but I read the whole thing. At the bottom it said something like this:

"If you think you are really a christian and you send this type of chain email to your christian friends...then this time show your faith by sending this on to EVERYONE in your address book."

The email was saying. You aren't a "real christian" unless you forward this crap to people who do not want it. That pissed me off.

Nobody has stronger opinions then me. I have spent over 50 years thinking about this stuff and I can discuss and debate almost any important issue. Much of what I believe, I post here, but I do not send chain emails to friends to prove my faith or lack of it. For me, chain email is not about faith. It is about being inconsiderate of others. Further, I am annoyed by people who have less then zero writing skills and send the ideas of other idiots, rather then write.

Email should not be like...having friends over for dinner and then try to sell them AMWAY.

So, I have begun to push back. When I get this crap I reply to all and explain that America is a great country but we are diverse. Our strength comes from this diversity and we need to understand that chain emails are ..."LIKE WEARING UNDERWEAR ON YOUR HEAD". You can do it but you only look stupid.

For the record:

• I think illegal immigrants have every right to be here. If they walked 900 miles and risked their life to live here, they passed the test. Many of the people who were born here are not as tough.
• I do not support the god-myth. I understand why people need it, but I do not.
• I want a President who will make government work for taxpayers.
• I dislike traffic laws. I think if you hit other cars you should have to ride the bus.
• I think Service in America is in a crisis. There is almost no real service.
• I do not like to watch sports. It seems like watching other people exercise. I can not understand why men carry on about athletes.
• I love my wife and children even when they do odd things.
• I will give you the shirt off my back, but I will beat you to death if you try to steal it.

Welcome to Hell

Steely Dan sings on Babylon Sisters......."here comes those Santa Ana winds again". I was thinking of it last night as I stood at Irvine and Sand Canyon, watching the fire consume the hill side along Portola Parkway. Two thing stood between the fire and our new home. A dirt lot and a thin red line of fire fighters.

We watch the weather on TV. There really isn't much weather to discuss in Southern California. The temperature is nearly always 78 except for the days when it is hot....like 82, or cold...like 75. There are those five or six days a year when we get "winter storms". This is just rain, but it is an event in Southern California. Then there are the Santa Anas.

They say the Santa Anas are the winds of satan. The name may have come from the Spanish, "vientos de Sanatanas". Reality is, they are named for the Santa Ana mountains and canyon that separate the Orange County coast from the inland desert. As high pressure builds over the desert, it develops winds that turn clockwise around the High. These winds are forced through the mountains where they build heat, speed, and low humidity. The result are 50 mile per hour sustained winds with temperatures in the high 80s and humidity as low as 10%. Hot dry wind. Like a blast furnace blowing down on metro Los Angeles.

So, Sunday, October 21, 2007, began with high wind just prior to sun up. By 8:00 AM fires had developed in Malibu and Santa Clarita. The air was filled with dust and sand. At 6:00 PM a new fire began on Santiago Canyon road. This fire quickly grew into a 2500 acre blaze covering the hills above Irvine. The fire burned down the hills closer and closer to Portola and the homes in Irvine. The air was thick with smoke and flying embers that would land and start new fires.

I watched as the Orange County fire department set up a line on Portola. This would be their stand to stop the fire from spreading into the homes on the west side of Portola. The fire grew stronger as it approached. More and more of my neighbors came to watch as the fire burned through 100 year old eucalyptus trees. They were like torches burning in the sky. I worried that the embers would blow over the fire line and ignite the empty lot between us and Portola. It tried several times but did not succeed. The fire line held. These men and trucks against a wall of fire. They held the fire until in slowly burned down and then moved south to Foothill Ranch.

Our new home and our new neighborhood was saved by those men and that dirt lot that refused to catch fire. The sky burned red all night. Pam packed a bag for a fast exit just in case. I got up every couple hours to watch the sky and check for evacuation orders. By dawn the fire and those men had moved south to replay their game of chicken. Men against a wall of fire. Homes and families in the balance. Babylon Sisters; Drive west on Sunset to the sea,Turn that jungle music down.

Left of Center

When I learned to drive a left turn was just another act of driving. You slow down, hit your blinker, wait until it's clear and turn. Simple act of driving. Those days are gone...or at least they are going and you did not vote to give up this right. If you notice you will find that with every new highway remodel, they [government] are adding left turn lanes and left turn lights. Your days of turning left are getting shorter.

Statistics are to blame. Seems like most accidents occur as a driver is making a left turn. Either he or she is stupid or in a hurry. Regardless, they hit somebody and this adds up to a report. Left turns cost insurance companies money. They lobby the state. Next thing you know, they put a left turn light up for you to turn into your own drive way.

I can not tell you how many hours I have wasted sitting at green lights waiting for the left turn arrow to come on. Used to be, you could make a left turn if you yielded to on coming traffic. Even that compromise was too dangerous. Seems like many idiots turned when cars were coming. Now you have to wait for the arrow.

If this turn lane doesn't work, we will all be forced to drive around making right turns until we get back home. I can see the next step in which they eliminate ALL left turns so as to save those six lives lost last year. Next time you go to turn left....complain about the light.